May 7, 2014

The Isolating Putin Doctrine

During the 23 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian public opinion and the mindset of its ruling elite have gone from a generally pro-European liberal orientation in the 1980s and 1990s to a gradual revival of the idea of Russia as a great power in the late 1990s — especially after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the first Chechen war.

It's easy to understand why Putin would covet and wish to annex Odessa and other southeast Ukrainian cities, but calling them Russian cities evokes a history that never was. In the 1920s, when Vladimir Lenin made the region... more ››

Why then did Putin launch his annexation of Crimea and his subversion of eastern Ukraine? Well, to begin with, it wasn’t part of his original plan. Putin thought he had won when he pressured Ukraine’s bootboy president,... more ››